Archives for March 2015

A week ago, I never dreamed I’d ever write about One Direction on my blog. Nevertheless, here I am about to devote nearly 1,000 words to perhaps the hottest boy band to grace planet earth since my own days as a boy-band-lovin’ teenage girl in the late 90s, and I can’t even call myself a fan because I only know one song.

And knowing one song does not a Directioner make, good groupies.

What I do know, however, is what it’s like to be a teenage girl who loves a band so damn much that when a member leaves or the band breaks up, it doesn’t just feel like the end of the world – it IS the end of the world.

That feeling is why I spent much of last Thursday afternoon annoyed with Twitter, and not because a good number of my readers I follow were posting their feelings over Zayn leaving the band.

I was annoyed with the bands and music fans I follow who were joking back and forth about the reaction (or what they thought was over reaction) to the 1D news. [Read more…]

It’s hard to say whether or not my 2015 SXSW was a success. I saw the no. 1 band on my “to see” list, Colony House, but I stood in the rain and mud to watch their set thanks to the Friday afternoon downpours. (Still totally worth it.) I successfully parked on Austin’s city streets without getting a ticket (always an achievement in my world after this), but it was a 1.5 mile trek just from the car to downtown, never mind all the miles clocked running from venue to venue. And I just freakin’ went instead of watching from the social media sidelines like I have the last few years, but I only conquered 1.5 days before I was out.

I guess we’ll call it a draw.

Nonetheless, running the streets of downtown Austin with Lauren and Katie for as long as I lasted was blast, as always. Nothing is better than hanging out with a few of your music besties in the live music capital of the world. We saw lots of great stuff. We heard about lots of great stuff. And we ate a lot of really great food.

Here’s the wins, the losses and everything in between from our SXSW 2015 adventure: [Read more…]

Something happened to me when I watched the Grammy’s this year.I didn’t hate it. In fact, I found myself making mental notes of the bands and albums I wanted to check out. Maybe it was the 20+ performances. Maybe it was Lauren and Katie’s influence because they know every song, ever and we were texting each other through the whole broadcast.

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because not all mainstream music sucks.

When Danielle pitched the idea of this topic, I was all in. In my effort to live a more musical life in 2015, I’m ditching my inner music snob and just loving the music I love. Here are four mainstream artists and bands I’m giving a closer look this year and that you might be totally overlooking too just because they’re on the radio. (They’re certainly artists I was overlooking!)

Hozier
Several weeks back, one of my reader’s #bestsongallweek picks was “Jackie and Wilson” by Hozier. From the moment I hit play, I was in love…which led me to finding Hozier’s album to give a listen. Low and behold, I discovered I already knew one of his songs pretty well – the album’s single, “Take Me To Church”.

It’s one of those songs on the radio that I hear and like well enough…but nothing about it sucked me in and made me want to seek out more. It was tolerable, which is about all I can ask of Top 40 radio these days. After falling for “Jackie and Wilson,” the album went on rotation for most of the following weekend…which led to looking up tour dates…which led to being totally bummed out the Houston show is sold out.

But this is a prime example of not letting a single on the radio define your impression of the band. There is so much more to explore on a 45 minute album than in a four minute song.

But then Ed was included in last year’s Grammy salute to The Beatles where he played “In My Life” – just him and an acoustic guitar on a stage with Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney 20 feet in front of him. What could possibly more nerve-racking as a performer?

From the start, he totally owned his performance, and my opinion was forever changed. I was impressed. No more was this the annoying crumbling like pastries guy. This was the I-need-to-hear-everything-else-I-possibly-can-RIGHT-NOW guy. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with Ed Sheeran’s lyrics and guitar skills. And learned not to judge an artist by a single lyric I don’t care for…

Meghan Trainor
A female voice and a basic beat. That seemed to be all you needed to be played on the radio as a female last year. (Lorde and Iggy Azalea, anyone?) When everyone started going crazy for “All About That Bass,” I gave it a listen…and as a curvier girl, I of course loved the lyrics. No stick-figure, silicone Barbie doll indeed!

But I also dismissed Meghan as the latest flavor of the month. “All About That Bass” was just the new “Call Me Maybe”, right? Wrong. After learning that Meghan’s been writing songs since age 11, enrolled at Berklee College of Music at age 15 and wrote songs for Sabrina Carpenter, Rascal Flatts and Hunter Hayes, I was pretty damn impressed. Even more so when I read that she told her dad she didn’t want a record deal until she was “25 and could handle it” and landed that deal by performing for the current head of Epic Records with just a ukulele in hand.

Bonus points: her delicious bubblegum pop tunes are fueled by her early love of 50s doo-wop – music that’s just a hop, skip and jump away from my own early beginnings on 60s pop. Meghan also taught me you never know someone’s credits for who they are and why until you bother to look them up.

Katy Perry
I will never tell you how many times I watched “Part of Me”, Katy Perry’s documentary, on Netflix last spring, but I blame (or thank) Lauren and Katie for my fueling Katy Perry obsession. I never really minded her, but her music seemed geared towards a younger demographic than me. So at my previous job when a girl my age was endlessly talking about going to see Katy Perry in 2012, I couldn’t for the life of me understand it. Weren’t we both a little…old for a girl singing about feeling like a plastic bag, blowing aimlessly in the wind?

Boy, was I wrong. Sure, Katy Perry has that bubblegum pop sensibility to her songs, but I’ve found plenty to love – esp. on her last album, “Prism”. “By The Grace of God” absolutely cut me to the core the first time I heard it. “International Smile” could be this blog’s theme song in a heartbeat.

Sometimes music you don’t mind just needs a closer look. Or the viewing of a documentary a trillion times to make you realize at the heart, the artist is a girl who just wants to make people happy with music…like you.

The Playlist
Listen to some of the songs that I like by these artists that aren’t necessarily on the radio:

The SXSW countdown is on. Of course, the music portion of this illustrious event is already underway, but I won’t be heading over to Austin until Thursday to catch the final days of South by Southwest 2015 with Lauren and Katie. All weekend I’ve been drooling over everyone’s Tweets and Instagrams of all the fantastic bands they are seeing. This is truly my favorite time of the year as a music fan because South by is like your birthday, Christmas and every other holiday you love all rolled into one monstrous music fan package. SO much new music to discover!

To prep, I’ve spent the last few weeks reading festival previews on blogs and magazine sites, pouring through playlists on Spotify and listening to every last song on The Austin 100 (a free download of 100 songs from NPR Music – check it out!) The result? A ridiculous wish list of all the bands I want to cram into my Friday and Saturday.

Most of it won’t happen – it’s just the way SXSW goes. And sure, I hope to see a few of my favorites who are playing around town too, but my main goal is to listen to new bands I’ve never seen or heard and bring them all back to you guys to share. New Music Monday in April is gonna be banana crazies, get ready.

So whether you’re headed to (or already at) SXSW or not, here’s five new-to-me bands I hope to catch during my two-day music marathon: [Read more…]

Welcome back, Rock Novel Reading Club. I have missed you. In case you missed last year’s Rock Novel Reading Club, the premise is pretty simple: find a “rock novel” (any book with a story based in the world of music – and fair warning, most are YA novels which I unapologetically love) and ask you guys to read along with me.

I’m welcoming this feature back today, and we’re going to kick it off by picking back up with the book we left off with – “Amplified” by Tara Kelly. We started this book, and I know many of you finished it but we never reconvened to discuss it…so I wanted to give it its due. Here’s the details about the book: [Read more…]

After nearly five years of blogging, I’ve made a lot of really great blogging friends. Not all of them blog about music, but all of them have a unique perspective to share. Throughout the year, I’m inviting them to guest post on The Good Groupie and share music they’re passionate about. Today, meet my favorite party planner and greeting card maker, Chrystina Noel, who is sharing her love of musicals.

Growing up my parents didn’t listen to much music. As far as bands and pop stars go, the only people I knew existed before the age of seven were Whitney Houston and Peter, Paul & Mary. Instead, I grew up on musicals. When there was music playing it was usually the Andrew Lloyd Webber greatest hits CD; I grew up on songs from “Phantom of the Opera”, “Cats”, “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Aspects of Love”. I fell in love with full orchestras, belting voices and songs that tell stories.

Not everybody’s eyes light up when they hear the word “musical”, sometimes they comes with the connotation of being corny, unbearably long or boring. Today I want to share with you five musicals that I think will help change your mind.

So you may find yourself wondering, why bother listening to musicals if you haven’t before? I’m glad you asked. [Read more…]

In May 1997, I thought Hanson looked and sounded like a bunch of girls. It was the end of seventh grade, Hanson had just arrived on mainstream radio, ready to kill grunge once and for all with their sunshine-y pop songs, and my friends latched on to “MMMBop” the way only a bunch of 13-year-old girls could. Everyone was picking their favorite brother, playing Middle of Nowhere relentlessly and buying up teenybopper magazines for posters to re-wallpaper their bedrooms.

And all the while I stood back, nose turned up, wondering how on earth anyone thought these guys were cute or could stomach their girlish voices. (It’s also probably worth noting that up until this point, I’d never bothered with Top 40 radio stations. It was all oldies all the time for me.)

That’s exactly how my relationship with Hanson – the band I’ve seen in 11 cities and six states a total of 35 times (which is chump change in Hansonland) – began. With me disliking everything about them.